


unspoken

by vampiresuffrage



Series: unspoken and not [1]
Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship, and then wrote just so much about these shitheads, canon compliant bastard behavior, canon compliant thoughts/threats of violence, dennis has an eating disorder, i lost my mind thinking abt the beautiful lips thing and spiralled, there is also a panic attack, theyre in love with each other but neither one of them wants to say it, this is definitely set after chokes but other than that not at a Specific time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:13:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21637177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vampiresuffrage/pseuds/vampiresuffrage
Summary: Monthly dinners were a thing again, only now the whole gang was involved. They all seemed insistent on ruining the song and dance Dennis had so carefully choreographed to keep things safe between him and Mac. Dennis could work with that, could keep things normal and unchanged. Until he couldn't. Until Charlie had to force them to do some bullshit to work through their nonexistent problems by complimenting each other, of all things.It was bullshit. Dennis didn't have a script for it. He slipped up.
Relationships: Mac McDonald/Dennis Reynolds
Series: unspoken and not [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559695
Comments: 13
Kudos: 170





	unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> my friend gawain is completely to blame for this he talked me into writing this please enjoy (also!!! read the tags for warnings because there are some things)

Monthly dinners were a thing again. Sort of. Frank decided for some goddamn reason that they needed to spend non-scheme-related time together outside the bar. Something about how he was gonna die soon or whatever. They all said no, of course, but he said he'd pay for them all to eat out at a 4-star restaurant of their choosing once a month. So they ate together once a month. 

The whole gang. 

Monthly dinners, just him and Mac? Those decidedly did not make a comeback. Dennis fucked that up when he decided to run away and fail at being a father. Mac didn't ask for monthly dinners to happen again, and Dennis sure as hell wasn't going to be the one to put his heart on the line to ask for that back. 

He and Mac had a very delicate song and dance going on since Dennis came back. If Dennis did some dumb shit like be vulnerable and say he missed monthly dinners, the scales would tip way too far. Mac would have the upper hand. That would be unacceptable. So he and Mac ate with Dee and Frank and Charlie now. It was _wrong_ , but Dennis made it that way so he just had to take what he could get.

Presently, they were at some Greek restaurant that apparently had gyro good enough to make people cream themselves. Dennis wouldn't know. He caught sight of himself in the window on the way in, and. Well. He wasn't all that hungry anyways.

Mac shot him a stupid little sideways glance every time he picked at his food with his fork without taking a bite. Dennis' teeth clenched tighter every time and his hands started to shake. He dropped his fork noisily enough that everyone at their table was looking at him. 

"Did you _need_ something, Mac?" He only had the balls to ask because he knew Mac wouldn't tell the others that Dennis stopped eating when he didn't feel sexy.

"I, uh." He shook his head. He didn't even bother coming up with a lie. Goddamn idiot. Coward.

"Oh really? So you were just staring at me for nothing, is that it?"

Mac squared his shoulders. He always did that when he was about to try to play tough. It would be cute if it weren't always followed by him being annoying as shit. "Look Dennis, if you have a problem just spit it out man."

Dennis scoffed. He could feel the rant building in his throat. It was routine. The words tasted like dust but he started on anyways. "Oh, do I have a _problem_ , Mac? How'd you figure that one out genius? My _problem_ is that you always--"

"God, can you two _shut up_ already?" Charlie's voice was already shrill, right from the start. Dennis could sense a budding headache. "Jesus, like, we're all fucking sick of this, right?" Dee and Frank nodded like the traitors they were, and Charlie continued on. "You two always do this shit and it's _weird!_ You're not even fighting _over_ anything, you just like to make us watch you yell at each other over weird shit!"

Dennis narrowed his eyes. "I will have you know--"

"No! No, No! You--you shut up! You just both need to--" Charlie cut himself off to scream once. Dennis' head throbbed. He glanced at his glass and wondered if breaking it over Charlie's head would end this. He seemed calmer after he got the scream out of his system though. Dennis decided he would let this play out until he got bored. "How about this? Frank and me, when we get pissed at each other, we say nice shit about each other 'till we're not angry no more."

Frank nodded. "Works like a charm too. Charlie's only broken the window twice since we started."

"And Frank's only pulled his gun on me once! I'm telling you man, it helps!"

Dennis couldn't even manage a laugh at that one. He made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded half strangled. "I am--I will _not_ sit here and _compliment_ a man who has been staring at me like an insane person since we sat down. That is ridiculous, Charlie."

Mac...didn't say anything. He didn't rush to agree with Dennis that this idea was _stupid_ , which it so clearly was. Dennis glared at him. Mac sprung into action.

"Yeah, it's stupid. We don't need some stupid compliment bullshit like you guys." He sounded like he didn't believe a word of what he was saying, but he was on Dennis' side, and really that was all that mattered.

"Look, I'm just saying! It might help." Charlie trying to be the voice of reason might've been one of the funniest things Dennis had ever seen if it weren't directed at him.

"Charlie, you can't even read! You _certainly_ can't make other people do whatever couple's counseling bullshit you're talking about," Dennis spat.

Dee was smiling. Nothing good ever happened when Dee smiled. "If you two boners don't do it, _you_ have to pay for dinner tonight, and I plan to get absolutely hammered on the most expensive booze they've got."

"That's not up to you, you stupid bird bitch!" Dennis was fuming. What made Dee think she had _any_ right to--

And then Frank shrugged. "I'm sidin' with Dee on this one. You two better think of something _real_ nice to say about each other or else whatever she orders is on you to pay up for."

"You can _not--_ "

"Dennis." Mac looked kind of put-out, but not nearly as pissed as he should've. "Dude, they're not gonna lay off. I'll go first if it makes you feel better or whatever."

Dennis stiffened, looking around the table. Nobody was going to budge. He nodded once, sharply at Mac. 

Mac sighed. "You, uh. You never forget when it's your turn to do the dishes. That's pretty cool."

Dennis rolled his eyes. Of _course_ he didn't forget when it was his turn to do the dishes, he would have to be an _imbecile._ Still, it was technically a compliment so. His turn. "You don't fuck up my coffee most mornings. It usually tastes pretty good."

Frank crossed his arms. "That the best you got? Mac, you've got the gay thing going for you now and the best compliment you could come up with is that he does the dishes?"

"Goddammit Frank, that's not--" Mac huffed, looked up at the ceiling, looked back at Dennis. "It's. It's nice of you to drive me to the gym in the morning even though you don't usually go in with me. You just do it so I can get there more easier."

If he didn't, Mac would waste all their money on Ubers. Plus, there was a coffee shop down the street with a barista that Dennis allowed to flirt with him. He wasn't Dennis' type, but the attention was nice. Dennis didn't say any of that. He just nodded. "You always make sure I get out of bed in the morning so I have enough time to get ready. It's...helpful."

His throat felt raw with the weight of admitting that. When Mac woke him up on the days he was bone-tired and hollow, more often than not he would say something too loud and too mean to try and feel something, or at the very least he bitched Mac out for disturbing his sleep. He did appreciate it though, once he was awake and had his face on. He tried to make that clear by smiling and letting their fingers touch when Mac handed him his coffee, but saying it out loud felt too much like tipping the scales.

Mac looked surprised he'd said it too. Surprised enough to just stare at Dennis for the longest ten seconds of Dennis' life instead of taking his turn.

"Are you people satisfied now?" he demanded, sick of waiting for Mac's fish-out-of-water face to fuck off.

Dee's smile got wider. Dennis' hand moved back towards his fork and he tried to think of a single reason not to stab it through her hand and laugh when he felt bone crunch. He only stopped himself when he realized he would have to be the one to drive her to the hospital and deal with her complaining the whole way there. 

"Well, I'm not satisfied at all, are you two satisfied?" She looked at Charlie and Frank, eyes bulging unattractively wide. 

Charlie looked Dennis and Mac over. "I dunno, Dennis still looks pretty pissed. That means it hasn't started working."

"Charlie's right," Frank agreed, nodding like he knew fucking anything. "You gotta keep going until you both get the hell over yourselves."

Dennis' jaw tightened. "I am going to take my fork, and I am going to--"

"You're good at doing your makeup, like, natural looking. If I didn't see you in the morning, I wouldn't know you had it on dude."

Well. Mac was still doing this. Dennis resolutely ignored the way his throat tightened at Mac's words. He couldn't give any sort of sign that he spent just about every second of the day wondering if people could see any cracks or uneven patches in his skin. Only a weak man would be so insecure, and Dennis was not a weak man. Appearance-based compliments were easier to hand out than some bullshit about Mac's character though.

Dennis cleared his throat. "Jesus Christ, fine. Mac, you uh--I don't know. Your stupid sleeveless shirts are less offensive to look at now that you wear pants that actually fit."

And now that he actually had the muscles to make the shirts work. But Mac didn't need to hear that part. Mac still beamed at the compliment. 

"Thanks man! You're even more better than me at like. Picking clothes and stuff. You always look good."

Dennis straightened a little in his seat. About time _someone_ acknowledged his perfect sense of style. "And you don't look...terrible. Now that you're spending so much time at the gym."

Mac's eyes went soft and wide. Dennis half-wished he could take it back. He felt something scraping the edges of his God hole when Mac looked at him like that. 

"Bro, you've been looking _great_ since you started coming with me on cardio days. Seriously, you've gotten even more toned and shit than you were before."

It took all the willpower Dennis had not to look at his uneaten food. He'd be even more toned if he continued to utilize his impeccable self control and leave the plate untouched.

"You've gotten stronger too. You used to be weak as hell, but now you, uh. You're stronger than you were back then." He wasn't going to admit out loud that he'd seen it firsthand, several times, pretending to fall asleep on the couch so Mac would carry him to bed. 

Mac looked a little floored. 

"You really think so?"

Dennis shrugged. It was enough. Mac looked at him like he put the sun in the sky. The hole constricted a little more. It was almost too much. 

"You're starting to look stronger too bro." He sounded eager, like he couldn't wait to keep saying nice things to Dennis. "Seriously, you don't even need those pec pads anymore! Your pecs look great, dude."

And then they were ten years younger and they were in Guiginos and Dee's nosy bitchiness had actually made something good happen for once in her goddamn life and Dennis was the kind of man who didn't rehearse every word before he spoke and he responded to "sweet pecs" with "beautiful lips" and they both pretended he didn't make it weird. 

Dennis wasn't that person anymore, but judging by the way Mac's face had frozen and the way silence had completely swept their table, some muscle memory from back then had stuck around. 

After a few agonizing seconds of silence, Mac cleared his throat. "I need to piss."

He pushed his chair back clumsily and stood up, then walked the opposite direction of the bathroom. Right out the door of the restaurant. The edges of his God hole were once again cavernous and untouchable, and the table was once again silent. 

"Well, _that_ was awkward," Dee said finally, lips pursed like a deformed duck. "I feel like my skin's about to crawl off. Dennis, what the fuck was that?"

Dennis' hand grabbed his fork before he made the decision to do so. He was going to put it through Dee's hand. He was going to put it through her hand and he was going to leave her stuck there because she deserved it. 

As soon as he started to lift the fork, Charlie cut in. "I mean, we all piss in the street all the time now that it's legal, right? He's probably just pissing out there!"

Frank shook his head. "Nah, Charlie. He ain't pissing. Dennis just got too gay about it, scared him off."

"I did not-! That wasn't! That was not _gay_ , Frank. You moron, you neanderthal!" Dennis was shaking, equal parts furious and about to have a panic attack.

"It was pretty gay, Dennis," Dee squawked, as though anyone valued her input. "I mean, you said he's got _beautiful_ _lips_." 

"There is--there is absolutely--a straight man being confident enough in his sexuality to compliment a man is not gay, you--I hate you, you bitch. And you too Frank, you disgusting troll!" 

Charlie was, of course, too stupid to see that Mac _had_ been scared off by Dennis, so he stayed quiet and avoided Dennis' rage. Dennis was leaving the restaurant, fuming and shaking, every cell in his body a second away from imploding. His teeth were gritted so tightly his skull ached and he didn't even think about the fact that Mac was outside too.

He was wound so tight he was about to snap. His fists were clenched tight enough that he could feel his nails cutting into his palms, and he wanted so badly to destroy everything around him that he was paralyzed. His hands flew to his head, gripping his hair tight and _pulling_ and it hurt badly enough that his vision whited out, badly enough that he didn't notice Mac at all until Mac was grabbing his wrists, trying to ease his hands down.

He heard Mac mumbling something, but it all sounded like static. His voice and the passing cars and the people walking down the street and--it was too much _too loud_ \--and then there was a bang, and then silence. Mac dragged him into the Range Rover. Mac dragged him to silence to safety to just the two of them. Dennis let Mac gently untangle his hands from his hair. He let Mac stroke his thumbs over Dennis' knuckles. He caught his breath.

"You okay now, Dennis?" His voice was quiet in a way Dennis was pretty sure nobody else had ever heard. That voice was only for Dennis, only for moments like these when a loud noise or a sudden movement could send him hurtling off a cliff, screeching and clawing like a goddamn feral cat.

Dennis thought about the question long and hard before he nodded. He felt like at least some version of himself again.

Mac swiped his thumb over Dennis' knuckles one last time before he pulled his hands back. "Good. That's good, man."

Silence fell until Dennis found his voice again.

"So, uh. Back in there--" 

Dennis was going to bullshit some explanation that sounded less emotional and disgusting than whatever actually compelled him to say it, but Mac didn't give him the chance. 

"You can't just say shit like that to me man. I was gonna just leave it alone but you're bringing it up, so."

Dennis' throat tightened again. If Mac rejected...the _compliment_ outright, he was pretty sure his God hole would finally spread to his heart.

Of course though, Mac. Mac was in love with him. Mac was in love with him. Mac didn't want compliments that gave him hope. He was in love with Dennis.

"Oh. Right. I didn't think--right."

Mac shrugged, looked out the window. "I mean, it's fine, just. You know you can't say that to me."

Except he could. He could because Mac would take whatever scraps of affection Dennis tossed his way and thank him for it. 

Except no. No, that wasn't completely true anymore. Mac had grown into himself. He was confident in a way he never used to be. The boundaries he set now were boundaries Dennis had to respect. 

Mac was still wrong though. Dennis wouldn't just be giving him false hope. Mac got confident and proud and strong, and Dennis...liked it. It wasn't false hope if Dennis just couldn't say it out loud yet. It wasn't false hope if the question of him and Mac had gone from _never_ to _if_ to _when_. 

But tonight was not the night Dennis would admit any of that. So instead, he smiled at Mac. He put his keys in the ignition. He said, "If I go back in there I'm going to scratch Dee's eyes out of her head. Wanna go watch Thundergun?" 

Predator was still Mac's favorite movie, but it wasn't Tuesday. Dennis wouldn't break that routine, not even tonight.

Mac's eyes lit up. The tension evaporated. "Yeah, for sure! Want me to order takeout? Neither of us really got the chance to finish eating."

The question was pointed. Dennis' stomach turned at the thought of a meal. He shook his head in a definitive no, and Mac's face fell. He was so goddamn _expressive_. Dennis would kill himself if his heart were on his sleeve like that.

"Okay, what about popcorn? Can't do a movie without popcorn, man." Mac was chasing his tail hoping Dennis would throw him a bone. 

"Not happening." Mac opened his mouth, probably getting ready to say something about how worried he got when Dennis didn't eat. Dennis shook his head. "Your popcorn tastes like shit, you always burn it. I'll make it."

Mac beamed.

Maybe. Maybe when they got back to their apartment, Dennis ate more of the popcorn than he should've. Maybe it was because every time he grabbed a handful Mac gave him a stupid little smile that chipped at the edges of his God hole so it wasn't as dangerously close to his heart. Maybe Dennis was falling in love for the first time without even knowing it yet. Nobody would ever ask him, and he would never tell. 

What did happen: they both fell asleep on that couch because they were too old to stay up late and they'd seen Thundergun too many times to count. Mac went first, passing out almost immediately after the popcorn was gone. Dennis made it until halfway through the final confrontation. 

What did happen: Dennis slotted himself against Mac's side and fell asleep with his head on Mac's shoulder. In the morning, they both pretended to be asleep for a long time, ignoring the way their backs ached from sleeping on the couch because, despite Dennis' best efforts, they weren't twenty anymore, but they were both unwilling to break the contact and unwilling to acknowledge it out loud.

What did happen: eventually, one of their phones went off. Dennis sat up straight, Mac got up, and neither of them mentioned it. Mac made coffee, and their fingers brushed when Dennis took the cup, and Mac smiled and Dennis thought maybe he actually understood. 

What did happen: for the first time in Dennis' life, being seen, being _understood_ , didn't feel terrifying. It just felt like Mac

**Author's Note:**

> there is an optional part 2 to this that can be found in this collection!! if you read this whole thing i owe you my life, feel free to yell about these 2 dumbasses with me on tumblr @dykedennis


End file.
